Regional Factors for the Formation of Prototype

Abstract

The study of prototype has been an interesting subject for the scholars in psycholinguistics, for the prototype affects the way people talk in different situations and the social differences play a significant role in the formation of prototype. These social factors are the deep social structure that ultimately influences our linguistic behaviors. Using the theories related to categorization to analyze these social differences we can find out the reasons for the differences, which mainly contain culture, living environment, scientific development, living experience and age. This paper is intended to probe into the categorization of the fruits in China, and the researchers hope to get the factors which may in some degree influence their idea of typicality. The researchers believe that the regions where a person grows up may affect his idea of prototype in a category.